


A Thief Stealing Happiness

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Series: Nwalin Week 2015 [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Beorn's House, Dwarf Culture & Customs, F/F, Female Dwalin, Female Nori (Tolkien), Kili's runestone, Nwalin Week, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3934330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Prompt 2: Folk Tales<br/>The second of my Nwalin Week 2015 pieces, once again set in a very similar universe to A King and Her Damosels.<br/>In other words, the entire Company are ladies (excluding Bombur and Gloin).</p>
<p>At Beorn's House, Nori has questions that need answering.<br/>Dwalin, as usual, is entirely unreceptive to Nori's curiosity, especially when it involves her handiwork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thief Stealing Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> This is a day late because, well, I had to clean out my apartment yesterday and I had a final til 10 at night, so... Not much writing time. Hopefully I'll be able to finish today's prompt sometime today? But no promises.
> 
> Important to know:  
> Hopefully this is clear within the story itself, but if not, my fanon/headcanon is that each Dwarf has a type of stone or gem associated with them; for the Dwarves in the Company, I've based this mostly on the color of their cloaks in the book, but I tried to match by gemstone meaning too when I could.  
> Yes, Dwalin's craft is stone-carving/engraving; since this applies to gemstones too, I guess you could call her a lapidary? On that note, I have no idea how engraving actually works so I apologize in advance to anyone who actually has a clue about it.

“I didn’t take you for the superstitious type.”

Dwalin doesn’t even glance up from her etching, squaring off with a small metal strip to get the angle of the runes just right.

“I’m sure we’re all very curious what you mean by that,” the guard mutters flatly in response.

“You’ve been carving stone this entire journey, think I’m too dull to pick up your workmanship?” demands Nori, and with a flick of her wrist something is flashing through the air.

Dwalin might have ignored it, but the little something – a stone – sings of her own work, and the flash of cool, Aurora colors makes her gaze jerk up. Kíli’s runestone. It can’t have been anything else – Labradorite is the little princess’s gemstone – an odd choice, but fitting. Part of Dwalin wants to drop her work and her tools and snatch the stone as it flips through the air, but she manages to restrain herself with only a flinch.

“You give that back, _thief_ ,” she finds herself snarling in lieu of action.

 

Nori is pleased enough to see the visibly restrained strength in the way Dwalin sets down her tools. She’s a little less pleased to see the actual flash of anger in the guard captain’s eyes. It’d been a gamble, nicking the princess’s runestone. But Nori had been reasonably sure the lass herself wouldn’t mind, so it was more that anyone else in her family might. Including the stone’s artisan.

“I’m not planning on keepin’ it,” Nori retorts defensively, flicking the smoothed stone over her fingers. “Just curious.”

“It’s none of your business,” is the only reply she receives.

Which, really. How rude, but also oh how very expected. Nori plops down on the grass next to Dwalin anyway, and purposefully stares at the huge bees buzzing about the yard, since she knows the noble’s eyes are on her at last.

“Did the Lady Dís ask you to carve it?” ponders the thief as she absently brushes her thumbs over Dwalin’s handiwork.

“She did. Not that _that’s_ any of your business either.”

Nori isn’t sure exactly what makes her do it – annoyance, the closed look on Dwalin’s face, the way the guard captain’s eyes flit away to corner on Thorin – something. She wants to break character and shout “Look at me!” but doesn’t. Instead, she does something even more stupid.

“You really are in love with them, aren’t you?” Nori teases with a crooked smile, the one Ered Luin guards-dwarrows call ‘evil’. “Thorin and Lady Dís.”

 

The accusation is like a punch to the gut, somehow. Dwalin’s on her feet before she even realizes, and storming off into the skinchanger’s huge house. The thief has _no right_ , in fact _no one_ has the right to—

Dwalin has to pull up short when she finds herself not an inch from her elder sister. Balin has that knowing look in her eyes, the one Dwalin hates that makes her break out in a shameful, blotchy blush.

“Afternoon, sister,” Balin greets innocently as she adjusts the cuff of her quilted sleeve.

“Balin,” says Dwalin in turn – because to do otherwise would be poor manners.

That doesn't mean she wants to sit around and talk about that _ridiculous_ thief or her _stupid_ accusations either, the quintessential “what’s bothering you” – Dwalin knows she’s being an idiot, it isn't as if Nori knows anything about her, or Thorin, or Dís. It doesn't really matter what she says. It doesn't. Hearing Dwarrows say things like that has never bothered Dwalin before, and she refuses to let it do so now. Nori isn't some pompous courtier who looks down her nose at Dwalin’s stature or her proclivity to “engage in courtship duels as if they were soon to be prohibited, instead of waiting for a proper offer of courtship first”. A thief has no footing to look down on her, for _anything_. Nori’s just doing it to get under Dwalin’s skin, and if she thinks—

“I was sure you'd taken your chisels with you,” Balin muses, breaking suddenly into Dwalin’s reverie.

Oh _no_.

The blood leaves Dwalin’s face in a hideous rush, and all her complaints against the thief are forgotten in the panicked need to recover her tools. Despite her temper – stupid, overactive, Bull temper – Dwalin has not misplaced her chisels in decades, and then only in times of great need. In a world where they had nothing, theft was uncommon within a group but rampant between them. Something Dwalin has always detested, but a reality she’s had to live with.

That she’d let her guard down enough to storm off without her chisels –

No. Really, it was that Dwalin was so angry, that was all. Just her stupid cloddish nature overcoming her again. Trust with the tools of one’s trade is not something so easily gained that Nori’s gotten it already.

And what use would Nori have for stone-carving tools anyway? There’d be no point in her stealing them.

Only, when Dwalin steps back out onto the grass, both thief and chisels are gone.

 

Ok, so the conversation hadn’t gone _quite_ as planned. And Nori is stubborn but she isn’t an idiot, she can admit it might have sort of maybe been slightly her fault. Sure, she could lay the blame on Dwalin’s always hovering around Thorin – which is her job, actually – or the adoring way she often speaks of the king and Lady Dís – who are well-loved by a lot of Dwarrows, honestly. But Nori isn’t a dwarfling anymore, and admittedly there’d been no particular catalyst to her accusation except granite-variety jealousy and annoyance at not getting the response she’d wanted.

But leaving Dwalin’s chisels in the grass for any Dwarf, horse, or dog to step on would be not only an obvious step in the _wrong_ direction to courting her, but just an awful thing to do to any crafts-dwarf. So she gathers them up carefully, bundling each chisel into its slot in Dwalin’s leather pouch before clambering onto the roof to sulk.

It’s only good manners. At least Dori would approve.

The thought makes Nori snort.

Mahal forbid she do anything Dori would approve of, even if it is only good sense.

To keep her hands busy, Nori fiddles again with the princess’s runestone, and the half-finished carving Dwalin had been working on, comparing them. It’s obvious which was of better quality stone. Only the best for a princess, right?

And runestones for protection supposedly worked better when carved from the patron stone of the one to be protected. Labradorite is an odd choice, to be sure, but Nori isn’t one to judge – it shimmers, it’s colorful, what’s to criticize there? Suitable for Kíli, too.

But the unfinished piece, while clearly some sort of runestone itself, is generic. Quartz? A stone Dwalin could’ve easily picked up anywhere along their journey. And instead of a message of protection – the Lady Dís’s succinct “Return to Me” to her daughter – it looks like a charm for something much less urgent.

“Hm.”

Nori bites the inside of her cheek as heat surges to the high arch of her cheeks.

It’s precisely that moment that the shout of “Thief!” echoes around the yard. Nori buries her face in her knees and groans, just for a moment, before she forces a smirk onto her lips and slides from the roof with practiced ease.

 

“You called?”

Dwalin turns, half-panicked, half-enraged, and is startled to complete stillness at the sight of Nori holding out her pouch of chisels and the two runestones with outstretched hands. There’s a rude smirk – her ‘evil smile’ – on the thief’s face, but her eyes are disarmingly earnest. The guard captain feel her heart slam hard against her ribcage for a single beat, but has enough self-control not to rub at her sternum with the heel of her large palm.

Dwalin clears her throat.

There’s no denying that the ‘Ri’s are a beautiful family. Dori’s looks are classic: mithril hair, a strong but reasonably compact build – counterpoint to Dwalin’s ridiculous hugeness – a large nose, and round ears. Ori’s beauty is one still developing, but if the way she was able to heft Dwalin’s warhammer was any indication, she’d rival her elder sister. Nori, for her part is…

Well. Nori. From her oddly slender build to her ostentatious hair, she’s styled to be seen. And she certainly knows how to make a Mahal-damned entrance, given Dwalin hadn’t caught hide or hair of her until she was presenting herself before Thorin as a volunteer for the quest. A shocking first meeting of the Summer Thief, to put it in Balin’s more polite words.

“What, don’t you want ‘em?”

Dwalin blinks hard and makes a mental note to stop going on long mental tangents like she’s Thorin or something.

“Aye,” she snaps, “I do want them.”

Nori holds her arms out a little farther, as if to say she isn’t attempting to hold anything back. In response, Dwalin snatches up the pouch and runestones. Then she flips open the satchel to check her chisels, finding each one carefully in its place. That realization prompts a surge of relief, which also includes the barest hint of easily-denied fondness.

Dwalin clears her throat again and offers a gruff, “Good.”

There’s a beat of silence that stretches almost into a full pause.

“I’m still curious,” chimes the thief, breaking it and scuffing her boot in the soft dirt. “About the runestones.”

 

The answer Nori receives is not one she expected. On some level, she hadn’t expected an answer at all.

“My grandfather used to make them,” explains Dwalin. “Said his mother taught him.”

And really that would’ve been enough to sate Nori’s curiosity. But the tension in Dwalin’s expression slackens when she looks at her work, and the guard settles down in the grass cross-legged and handsome in a way that would speak to any Dwarf of an imminent story.

And Mahal would darken his forge before Nori would gave up such a perfect opportunity to listen to Dwalin, uninterrupted, without the guard captain’s – admittedly heart-stopping – anger directed at her.

“Runestones are almost as old as Dwarrows themselves, but the line of Durin’s used them more frequently than most,” Dwalin recites. “The story goes, over ten generations past, a lass named Sigrun carved a runestone for her lover – same message that’s on Kíli’s, “Return to Me”. Just out of clear quartz, hardly special. More of a silly youngster’s token than anything – just to make them both feel better. But when her lover’s troop was ambushed, it shattered an Orkish blade meant for her heart without a single scratch on it.”

Nori lets out a low whistle, sensing the appropriate time to express her awe. It pulls a quick flash of mirth to the corners of Dwalin’s lips, the sight of which Nori tries with all her might to lock in her memory.

“Most Dwarrows say she magicked it like some witch,” continues Dwalin, scoffing, “but that’s a load of Warg shite. The stone knows what you tell it, that’s all. Even a simple stone, with heart behind it.”

Nori nods, watching Dwalin’s mouth curve into the ghost of a smile, and means to say nothing at all.

Instead, what comes out is, “My mother was called Sigrun.”

The guard captain’s eyes are almost playful as she meets Nori’s gaze, and the thief can’t quite bear to look away.

 

“That’s a good name,” Dwalin says at last, unfurling her satchel to get at her chisels again. “Strong name.”

It’s a good out, though the thief no doubt doesn’t even realize. Because maybe, _maybe_ she trusts the too-beautiful pickpocket, but that doesn’t mean spilling her whole life’s story. And even if Balin noticed that with her sister’s inkings and shaved head came an increase in etched runestones, she’s never said anything of it, which is just fine by Dwalin. No one needs to know Fundin had given his runestone to his youngest daughter on the day of Azanulbizar. Even if Idun had caught Dwalin turning it over clumsily in her hands on the nights she wouldn’t – couldn’t – close her eyes. No one needs to know anything about it. It’s not important. Or it’s too important.

Dwalin goes back to etching a message for happiness in the quartz, careful not to let her attempts to wrench away from that line of thought show in her big hands. Surprisingly, Nori’s fine company for that – chattering at anyone who walks past, playing a dice game with Bofur.

 

All through the afternoon, Nori watches Dwalin without watching her. She can hear the little quartz rock singing under Dwalin’s attentions, and completely concurs. To see those big, battle-roughened hands etching delicate detail – prefect straight lines, the slightest flourish to the characters, much better than her own crude chickenscratch even if it isn’t on par with Ori or Balin’s calligraphy – makes her want to sing too.

The word ‘happiness’ rattles around her skull.

The corner of Nori’s mouth twitches when she wonders if she’ll be able to sap some of the runestone’s happiness for herself, since she’s held it in her hands. Thieves, after all, own a little of everything and all of nothing.

And honestly, she’ll need all the help for happiness she can get, even _after_ the suicide mission with the dragon is over. Stupidly, Nori’s already made her choice – it’s Dwalin or nothing, and not even Dori could dissuade her from it anymore. She’s still a ne’er-do-well, still a petty thief, but Nori – like her elder sister – has always had an eye for the finer things in life, and in her mind Dwalin is the finest of them all.

It’ll just take a damn bit of doing to press a suit.

The thought makes Nori’s fingers itch, and she snatches back the princess’s runestone while Dwalin works.

 

When Kíli appears before Dwalin, a bit breathless, her dark hair wild and her eyes ashamed, Nori already has the princess’s runestone in hand. She tosses it to its rightful owner with a flick of the thumb that sends it spinning gracefully end over end, and Dwalin can continue her carving without interruption.

“Found it on the bench at the dinner table,” Nori lies smoothly, but for once Dwalin isn’t angry over it.

She just rolls her eyes and carries on, too busy carving to put thought to whose happiness it is she’s spelling into the stone.


End file.
